In the Bag (17 page)
“Well, you’ve got to know when to leave a bad situation.”
“Yes,” she agreed, toasting me with her wineglass. “Would you believe I just walked away from a job at the best restaurant in Chicago because of steak sauce?”
“Steak sauce?”
“Terrible stuff,” she said. “Just thickened sugar water, really. The owner wanted to have some in the back. You know, in case someone wanted
steak sauce
.”
She said it like it was hemlock.
“And you said . . .”
“I said, ‘Fine. Have your damn steak sauce. I’m leaving.’ ” She took a sip. “That was a week ago today.”
“Sorry,” I said.
She waved a hand as if batting away a fly. “Not at all. I was finished there. I left the restaurant before that over a TV.”
“As in, a television?” I asked.
“Yes. The owner of this wonderful restaurant decided to cover one wall in the bar with flat-screen TVs.” She looked around the bar we were sitting in. “Have you noticed that Europeans aren’t as TV-crazy as Americans?”
“Maybe because they don’t need the distraction of televised sporting events,” I said, deciding my particular obsession with the St. Louis Cardinals could wait to be explained later. “Europeans know how to have conversations.”
“Exactly,” she said. “What’s wrong with just talking? Isn’t that why bars were invented? So you could talk to somebody over a drink—as opposed to sitting at home alone getting sloshed?”
I loved how frank she was. I loved her smile. Her face. All those emotions swirling between her eyes and mouth. There was a tension that made me want to hear more, even though I didn’t fully understand her. Her face asked questions and made me care. Here I’d been thinking she was a Modigliani, but I was wrong. She was a Jimmy Webb song.
“Tell me about your daughter,” I said. “Her name’s Coco—as in Chanel?”
“Very good,” Daisy said, smiling. “I’m a big admirer of hers.”
“I don’t know very much about her,” I said.
“Let’s see,” Daisy began. “She learned how to sew in an orphanage. She was a survivor from the very beginning. She had a million obstacles, but ultimately she succeeded because she worked like a dog, and because she had the revolutionary idea that women should dress for themselves and not for men. She never married, which was unusual back then. That, combined with everything else, led her to be seen as a new kind of woman—one who could be independent, successful, and stylish.”
“Sounds familiar,” I said, raising a glass to my drinking companion.
Even in the dim light I could see her face redden. A woman who blushes. What would Coco Chanel say?
“I guess what I like most about her,” Daisy continued, “was that she made simplicity beautiful. It sounds like a no-brainer, but it was huge back then. It’s still huge now. How many times have you been to a supposedly good restaurant where you can’t even taste the food because it’s covered in . . . innovation?”
I couldn’t help smiling.
“You know what I mean,” she insisted. “Carrot soup should taste like carrots. Roast chicken should taste like chicken. A lemon tart should taste like lemons. All these so-called post-modern chefs with their delusions of creativity. It makes me cranky.”
I felt surprisingly relaxed with this woman, but there was something else. Something pleasantly unsettling.
Passion.
It’s what the museum show had lacked.
“I have a feeling you and Ms. Chanel would’ve gotten along famously,” I said.
“You’re kind,” she said. “But a strong, self-reliant character is important. It’s what I want my daughter to have. But you know what they say: careful what you wish for.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, God,” she said, shaking her head. “My daughter is completely independent. Eighteen years old and ready to run the world. She has no use for me anymore.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said. “I’m trying to do the same thing with my son. I want him to live without worrying what I think or what anyone thinks. I want him to have high standards for himself.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “That’s important. But Coco’s so hard on herself. I don’t know what she’ll do if she ever gets a B. She goes into hysterics if she gets an A minus. That’s not good. Life’s not like that.”
“No, it’s not.”
“I try to get her to come with me to Paris every year,” she said. “But she never wants to miss school. She hasn’t been to Paris with me since she was eight—by
her
choice, not mine. Can you imagine?”
“No. Webb’s always looking for an excuse to miss school.”
“The only reason she came with me on this trip was because I was able to plan it around her spring break. She wants to be perfect. It’s a recipe for disaster.”
“Or at least unhappiness.”
“Exactly,” she said. “And you know, that’s another reason I named her Coco. Because to me, chocolate is about indulging in things that give you pleasure. And what’s the point of life if you can’t find joy?”
On that note, we ordered another round of drinks.
“How’d you end up with a boy named Webb?” she asked. “Is there a story behind it?”
“There is, but it’s a long one.”
She looked at her watch: “I have almost four hours until my flight leaves.”
A
re you sure you want to hear this?” Andrew asked, smiling wearily.
I would’ve preferred a long, inconsequential story so I could stop listening and simply study his face. But this didn’t sound like one of those stories.
“Of course I want to hear it,” I said. “Dish.”
He smiled.
What a sweet smile. What a good man.
“Okay,” he said, turning more serious. “I’m the father of my sister’s child.”
What the—?
“Not the biological father,” he said quickly. “I adopted Webb when he was born. From my sister, Laura.”
“She didn’t want a baby?” I asked.
He took a thoughtful sip before answering. “She belonged to a cult. It’s a complicated story, but no, she didn’t want a baby. Or the cult leader didn’t want a baby. He was the father.”
“Oh, jeez,” I said. “What a jerk. But how wonderful that you were willing to adopt.”
“No white horse here,” he said. “The truth is, I probably didn’t give it enough thought. I was thirty-six years old at the time.”
I stopped listening and started calculating.
Thirty-six plus seventeen equals . . . What does it equal? I need a pen and paper. Think! 36 + 17 = 43. Is that right? No, idiot. Carry the one. Fifty-three. He’s fifty-three. How old am I? Forty-four? No, forty-five. Nine-year difference? No, eight! God, am I drunk or just stupid? Shut up and listen!
“Uh-huh,” I said, checking back into the conversation.
“Laura knew the baby was going to be a boy. And I figured, I could do that. I knew boy stuff. And there was nobody else. I’m her only sibling. So I took him home from the hospital.”
“Go on,” I said.
“I guess that’s why I worry about Webb becoming dependent on anyone or anything—like the damn computer. Laura is probably the most naturally gifted abstract painter I’ve ever known. But she somehow managed to rob a bank and kill two tellers for her so-called boyfriend, the cult leader. He got three years. She got twenty-five.”
“Jesus Christ,” I said.
“I know. So that’s why I’m always searching in my son for another overload.”
“I’m . . . sorry.” I started to reach across the table and put my hand on his. But he’d already clasped his hands behind his head and was stretching backward.
“Please,” he said. “I’m the one who should apologize. I don’t tell many people. It’s a story that can clear a room.”
“I’m assuming your son knows about all this?”
“Not every detail, but he knows.” He paused. “Shall we change the subject?”
“Of course,” I said. I felt an irrational fondness for this man wash over me. “But can you tell me about the name ‘Webb’? I like it.”
His face brightened. “I named him after my favorite songwriter, Jimmy Webb.”
I cringed. “I should know him, right?”
“You probably do, but you don’t know you know him,” he said generously. “He’s sort of like your friend, Coco Chanel. Jimmy Webb wasn’t an orphan, but he came from humble roots in Oklahoma. His dad was a Baptist minister who didn’t think much of his son’s plans to be a songwriter. The father allowed only white gospel music and country music in their home. But when it was clear that making music was what Jimmy really wanted to do, his father gave him forty bucks and said, ‘It’s not much, but it’s all I have.’ He also told his son that writing songs would break his heart.”
“Whose heart—the father’s or the son’s?” I asked.
“The son’s,” he said. “Jimmy’s heart.”
“Oh, that’s so sad. But also great.”
“I agree. Because that’s what art is; that’s what it does. It breaks your heart. It moves you. If it doesn’t do that, forget it. It’s not worth it.”
He had an artist’s heart, but none of the weird artist hang-ups, like being broke. He was kind. He was generous. He had lovely manners. His face was warm in the candlelight. I couldn’t help hoping that my face looked softer and less haggard in the bar light than it had in that hideous workroom at the museum.
“What about the exhibit tonight?” I asked. “Did it move you?”
“Not especially,” he said. “But I’m not the target demographic for shows like that. I prefer paintings.”
We talked about art museums we loved. He knew them all but was wonderfully unsnobbish about it. Such a nice change from the poseurs who visited the Art Institute once a year and considered themselves
arty
.
“Of course, the museums in Europe are spectacular,” he was saying. “And you have the Art Institute in Chicago, which is wonderful. But the museums I find myself enjoying most are in Kansas City, Tulsa, Toledo, Ohio.”
“Tell
that
to a New Yorker,” I mumbled.
“They wouldn’t believe me,” he said. “It’s like admitting Glen Campbell is your favorite singer.”
“
Is
he?”
“Yes.” He laughed. “And now you know everything about me. But really, how can you beat his stuff: ‘Wichita Lineman,’ ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix,’ ‘Gentle on My Mind’?”
“Now that last one I remember,” I said. “I used to think it sounded so romantic, letting a guy leave his sleeping bag rolled up and stashed behind your couch. Now I think, for God’s sake, buddy. Get it together and get a bed. Get a house. Stop trashing my place.”
He laughed, but sadly.
Oh God, I’ve offended him.
“That’s exactly what I worry about with my son,” he said. “That he’ll be a guy who leaves his sleeping bag rolled up behind some poor girl’s couch.”
“But at a certain age, that
does
sound romantic,” I said. “To women as much as men.”
“Maybe it’s an analog thing,” he said.
I took a chance. “I think romance is harder in the digital or postdigital age or whatever we’re supposed to call it.
Love
is harder.”
“You think so?” he asked.
“I
do.
Don’t you see it with your son?”
“My son doesn’t date,” he said. “Not at all.”
“Neither does my daughter. She says dating is for losers. They don’t get it. There’s no such thing as dinner and a movie anymore.”
“They just roam in packs,” he added.
“They don’t hold hands. Or if they do, it’s done with irony and eyeball rolling.”
He smiled. “Holding hands. Wouldn’t that be digital—you know, literally touching digits?”
“You’re right,” I said. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. So love in the postdigital age is an age where nobody touches? Do you know when I was in college, I dated a guy for a year or so.”
“Are you telling me you held this man’s hand?” he asked, grinning.
“I did. And during breaks from school, when we couldn’t hold hands, we wrote letters
—
because long-distance calls cost money back then.”
He was smiling. “I remember those days.”
“And I’ll tell you something else,” I continued, encouraged by his eyes.
“Tell me,” he said.
“We also had this thing where we’d call each other and let the phone ring once, and then hang up. So it wouldn’t cost anything. But also because—”
“It was your thing,” he said.
“Yes. It was romantic.”
Wait, was it romantic? It was so long ago. I could barely remember. It should’ve been romantic. Was it?
“I get that,” he said. “And I like that the guy got credit every time the phone rang once at your house. What if it was a wrong number, and the person on the other end hung up after the first ring when they realized they’d misdialed?”